Game 95: Angels at Twins

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ANAHEIM, CA - JULY 13: Hall of Famer Rod Carew and American League All-Star Torii Hunter of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are seen on the field prior to the 2010 MLB All-Star Game at Angel Stadium on Tuesday, July 13, 2010, in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Rich Pilling/MLB via Getty Images) | MLB via Getty Images

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Time: 7:10 Central​

Weather: Getting muggier, 84°​

No opponent SB site, a nice indie one is Crashing the Pearly Gates​

TV: Twins TV. Radio: I wanna invent a new kids’ cereal and call it Gladdeberry​

26-year-old RHP Grayson Rodriguez gets the start tonight for Anaheim. He throws 96+ and has good extension (he’s 6’5”), but he’s been bitten by the injury bug (he’s coming off his second IL stint this year, and missed all of last season). When his control is good (it was in 2023/2024 with Baltimore), his changeup is a solid pitch. When it’s bad, it’s not, and in six starts this year his BB/9 is 5.3; that’s not what you want. Here’s wishing him a long and healthy career after he gives up 15 runs in two innings tonight.

As of this morning the Twins rank 30th in bullpen ERA. The good news is, the Angels rank 25th. Just for fun, Louis Varland’s ERA is 0.94.

Have you ever wondered why there is no SB Nation site for the Angels? It’s because a site writer did something bad.

In 2015, Angels outfielder Josh Hamilton had a relapse and admitted using illegal drugs. This was frustrating for Angels fans; the team had signed Hamilton to a very lucrative contract in December of 2012, even though Hamilton had problems with substance abuse (and related ooky behavior) before. The contract was a gamble, although Hamilton WAS coming off five straight All-Star seasons.

The contract was a gamble, and the gamble failed. Hamilton went from a 4.0 bWAR in 2012 to 1.3 in 2013 and 1.4 in 2014. After his 2015 relapse, the Angels traded Hamilton to Texas, and agreed to pay $73.5 M of his remaining $79.5 salary through 2017. (Hamilton was out of baseball by 2016.) As the team was hoping to rebuild under new superstar Mike Trout, that Hamilton salary weight was a real obstacle. (The team last went to the playoffs in 2014, were swept in the first round, and haven’t returned since.)

So I understand why Angels fans were very upset at the whole Hamilton situation. However — you really shouldn’t then write an article about how you’re looking forward to a player dying because of their addiction issues.

Which is what one Halos Heaven writer did. I won’t quote from the post, but you can read it here if you wish.

The resulting outcry led to every single person at Halos Heaven getting axed (which seems unfair to me; the others didn’t write the thing and it was quickly deleted). New people were brought on, but the site never regained its following, and eventually SB just gave up on it. The all-devouring moronic maw of social media has made the subsequent decade a hard time for internet blogs in general. (Plus, with baseball blogs, starting an indie one is harder. While Crashing The Pearly Gates seems to be doing alright, sites like Inside Halos can’t actually cover games because “accounts and descriptions of this game may not be disseminated without express written consent.”)

It’s not the first time a player has struggled with substance abuse, to be sure. Fans of the band The Baseball Project know well the story of Ed Delahanty, who got ****** on a train in 1903, was kicked off the train, and then fell (or jumped) into the Niagara River and went over the falls and died.

Fans of the Twins know well the story of how, in 2004, Torii Hunter was upset with Morneau for not making the most of his potential, took a swing at Morneau, missed and clocked Nick Punto instead. The argument was ostensibly over Morneau’s preparations and training regimen, but it was likely because Morneau would stay out pretty late partying sometimes. Hunter was ticked, and when Torii got ticked, he sometimes was apt to throw punches, or clothes.

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Of course, the dumbest/most famous brain fart involving the Twins and/or Angels came in 1978. Speaking at the Waseca Lions Club in September, Twins owner Cal Griffith said the following: “I’ll tell you why we came to Minnesota, it was when I found out you only had 15,000 blacks here. Black people don’t go to ball games, but they’ll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it’ll scare you to death. It’s unbelievable. We came here because you’ve got good, hard-working, white people here.”

What Griffith didn’t know was that newspaper reporter Nick Coleman was in the audience, and the comments made their way into the paper (then known as the Minneapolis Tribune). Coleman’s article also included a quote from Griffith saying star player Rod Carew “was a damn fool” for signing a three-year deal that was less than Carew was worth.

Naturally, Carew didn’t care for any of this, saying “The days of Kunta Kinte are over” and “I refuse to be a slave on this plantation and play for a bigot” before cooling down and backing off in the media. But the point was clear. Carew, coming off 12 straight All-Star seasons, was done with Cal Griffith. The Twins traded Carew that February to the Angels for Dave Engle, Paul Hartzell, Brad Havens and Ken Landreaux. Engle had one ASG appearance as a Twin. Carew had six with the Angels and reached the ALCS twice (losing in 1979 and 1982).

Incidentally, per Griffith’s idiotic comments, the reason the Senators frequently struggled with attendance was A) they usually stank and B) most people with decent jobs in D.C. back then were federal employees who had come from other cities. Many remained fans of the teams they first fell in love with.

And the Twins will put up a “rassling ring” after the game tonight, since a lot of people like that stuff.

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